(CNSNews.com) - Frustrated by an unsuccessful campaign to achieve religious recognition from the Boy Scouts of America, a Seattle-based Wicca church has launched its own youth program, which is based on tolerance for different beliefs, including differences in sexual orientation.

SpiralScouts founder Pete 'Pathfinder' Davis believes that many of the things the Boy Scouts are doing are "socially inappropriate." He said he created to the SpiralScouts to "fill the void left by prejudicial treatment of other established children's programs."

Davis, who serves as the Archpriest of the Wiccan Aquarian Tabernacle Church, said his main argument with the BSA is that the group has refused to recognize Wicca as an acceptable form of worship, but at the same time, the BSA incorporates the symbols of myriad Christian denominations into its Religious Emblems program.

He said the Scouts rejected a Wicca badge that was designed and submitted by a well-known Wiccan priestess.

In 1999, Davis created the SpiralScouts as the Aquarian Tabernacle Church's "answer" to the Boy Scouts and other youth organizations that subscribe only to "traditional" faiths. Today, the SpiralScouts welcomes children of all ages (four and up) and backgrounds, including Wiccans, pagans, atheists and homosexuals.

Davis said practicing Wicca is not a mandatory activity for the 50 SpiralScout units currently operating across the U.S., Canada and Switzerland. Beyond fostering a respect for nature, it is up to each SpiralScout unit leader to decide whether they will teach children the principles and philosophy of the Wiccan religion.

The vast majority of the SpiralScout units are operated by Wiccan groups and churches, he said.

"When we started to formalize the program, we designed it in a fashion that it's oriented towards earth religion, but so is Scouting, whether they realize it or not," Davis said. Unlike the "pervasive" use of Christianity contained within the BSA, the SpiralScouts was created to accommodate the spiritual beliefs of any minority religious group, he said.

SpiralScouts describes itself as a work in progress. It says it offers children the opportunity to develop interpersonal and life skills and a pagan world view, in addition to learning "the usual handicrafts of scouting and woodland lore."

Boy Scouts dismiss rejection

According to BSA spokesman Gregg Shields, religious emblems are the property of approved religious scouting organizations and are awarded at their own discretion. For example, he said the National Catholic Council on Scouting and the National Jewish Committee on Scouting each have their own unique religious emblem.

"There is no national Wiccan organization," Shields said. "So, that's why there is no religious award for Wiccans."

He encouraged any Wiccan group that would like to charter a troop in their community to submit an application to their local BSA council for consideration.

Focus on tolerance

According to the SpiralScouts membership requirements, it is imperative that parents and leaders promote religious and cultural tolerance so their children may learn to co-exist with society as a whole. Specifically, the group encourages children to accept the "differing roles of male and female throughout nature and culture."

Contrary to the Boy Scout policy of excluding homosexuals - a policy upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court - the SpiralScouts welcomes homosexuals within its ranks. Davis explained that the Wiccan religion accommodates homosexuals because its philosophy is focused on the "balance of polarities" of that exist in nature.

For example, Davis said the SpiralScouts mandates that leaders of individual units should include both a male and a female. However, he said the rules are flexible because some adults, such as homosexuals, "believe themselves to be embodying masculine or feminine characteristics."

Davis believes that such a male/female balance of leadership ensures a SpiralScout's positive integration into the real world. "Children are not born with prejudices," he noted. "They have to learn prejudice and intolerance from others."

Defiance of 'extreme right'

According to the group's handbook, "SpiralScouts is something new, something perhaps of historic proportions for modern Paganism. It certainly will have an unmistakable impact on Pagan children growing up in this era of Christian extreme-right domination of our culture."

According to the SpiralScouts' interpretation of the pagan philosophy, children participating in the program will learn to honor "both the maleness and femaleness we all harbor within us," as the handbook put it. "Perhaps, if we are lucky, even a few parents who may need some brushing up on these same skills may reap benefits just from being there with the children while the kids learn these things."

I have had to fight in court to maintain child support for my daughter from a parent whose lawyer is a witch, apparently the first known Wiccan to be admitted to argue before the Supreme Court. I found an article she wrote in which she really railed against Christianity's influence in schools. ??? You should have seen her in court several years ago when we presented a budget to the judge that included private school tuition--to a Christian School. She was on her feet in a flash and said they had not agreed to that and, she practically spat it out, particularly that one. If I had held any illusions about their hatred of Christianity and their agenda of erasing any effect of it from society, I would have seen the light. But I knew...

This is the homepage of SpiralQuest, a new Circle unit of SpiralScouts (TM), located in Hatboro, PA.

We are a Pagan alternative to existing youth scouting programs, welcoming boys and girls of all ages, backgrounds and faith traditions. We are commited to raising children in a tradition of tolerance, acceptance and balanced gender energies.SpiralQuestoffers a fun opportunity for Pagan kids and their families to interact! Our programs include badgework, nature and ecological study, exploration of basic commonalities of Pagan faith beliefs, arts and crafts projects, classical mythology study, and the favorite of all scouting activities - camping.

Please explore our site...

Read all About Usto discover more about SpiralScouts (TM) International, Inc - how it got started and its philosophies.

Go to a special Message about meetings and other important information from our Circle Leaders, Trish and Walter Bachteler.

Today, the SpiralScouts welcomes children of all ages (four and up) and backgrounds, including Wiccans, pagans, atheists and homosexuals.

This group is just screaming for every weirdo to come out of the closet to join as leaders. The combinations are endless :

a lesby dike with a crossdresser

a female wicca with a gay guy

I wonder how long this is going to last before they end up in a lawsuit for a molesting or some other scandel. Do we want to start putting in our bets as to how soon it will happen. I give them 2 years before some parents files a lawsuit. All monies raised will go to BSA. Or better yet to pay for the therapy that these poor kids are going to need.

The U.S. Military still has WICAAN Chaplins and Muslim Chaplins and both groups actively proselytize..
The Commander & Chief imo now that Clinton is gone...and war is on the horizon should 86 this crap

Good for them. If the courts recognize their right to form a private club, then maybe they will finally recognize the Boy Scouts rights as well... or would you all rather these, umm, alternative-lifestyles folks were in the Boy Scouts?

Those dang founding fathers...and Puritans...and those dang Qakers and those dang Hugonauts and those 99.9% of those who made America an independent nation With their right wing Bill of Rights and their right wing Constitution and their Libraries full of Right Wing literature.. And their right wing missionaries and universities and right wing hosptials etc etc etc... The Pagans & Lefties will save us...from those nasty terrorists...and those who would destroy the soul of the nation and enslave the people... Tolerating anything...and everything except the very thing that founded "America" that they reject and call evil... Good is bad and bad is good and woe to anyone who calls good evil..and evil good..

"The U.S. Military still has WICAAN Chaplins and Muslim Chaplins and both groups actively proselytize..
The Commander & Chief imo now that Clinton is gone...and war is on the horizon should 86 this crap"

Yeap, that "Freedom of Religion" thing is just such a bother...

So Joe, you think they should get rid of ALL Religions in the Military, or just the ones you don't approve of?

I have for years said that if they don't like the way BSA operates then they should start their own club. Sounds like they did just that. I'm just say that they are inviting diaster with their choice of "leaders".

Good for them. If the courts recognize their right to form a private club, then maybe they will finally recognize the Boy Scouts rights as well... or would you all rather these, umm, alternative-lifestyles folks were in the Boy Scouts?

That's how I look at it. Don't like the Boy Scouts' rules? Start your own club with your own rules. Once they have their own "ways" that other buttinskis are going to inevitably try to change, maybe they'll finally see things from a conservative point of view, at least in terms of freedom of association.

Satanic values as outlined by Lavey and Crowley are the final destruction of mans free will and moral values,
with a final out come of men destroying each other like maggots! So Satan can devour their souls.

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